China’s excessive energy consumption

“They are building massive amounts of infrastructure,” said Lynn Price, a scientist in the China Energy Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy research lab. “It takes incredible amounts of these energy-intensive commodities.” China’s growth in infrastructure is booming. Over the next 15 years it is going to build and rebuild New York City ten times.

This plan is one of the consequences of a growing population and shows the effects of a population that is four times larger than the United States even though its economy is only a third the size. At the beginning of the year the International Energy Agency said China surpassed the US in the world’s largest consumer of energy. The surge to build more and higher needs to have equipment as well, which is shown by recent investments in Caterpillar. These investments in machinery are presented by sales in Caterpillar’s Asia/Pacific region as it surged 81% from a year ago in the third quarter to $1.8 billion.